Doxycycline should not normally be used for STI post-exposure prophylaxis

Flu vaccine uptake improves for certain target groups

Public Health England says flu vaccination uptake for children, older people and pregnant women has improved on last year.

Data for September and October, based on 7,059 GP practices in England, indicates the vaccine uptake rates were:

31.8% in all pregnant women (up from 30% in 2014)

58.1% in 65+ year olds (up from 57.1% in 2014)

17.8% in all 2 year old children (up from 17.3% in 2014)

18.7% in all 3 year old children (steady on 18.7% from 2014)

15.4% in all 4 year old children (up from 14.15% in 2014)

However, PHE has warned that “there is still room for improvement” among people with long term health conditions under the age of 65: uptake was only 32.8% at October 31, compared to 34.9% at the same point in 2014.

The data is in the provisional monthly data set which has been compiled from responses from 91% of GP practices in England; data for 2014 was compiled from a 64% response rate from practices.

NHS Employers is also promoting its Flu Fighter social media toolkit to help trusts use Twitter as part of its ‘Flu fighter’ campaign. “The guide includes top tips to suit social media newbies and those who are more experienced. There are also Twitter template posts, which can be copied and pasted, to be used on organisation's twitter accounts. Keep up to date with the flu fighter team on twitter with @NHSflufighter and #flufighter.”

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